


we will leave our footprints behind

by four_leaf_chloe



Series: (i promise) i'll do better [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Everyone Loves Peter Parker, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Heavy Angst, Human Experimentation, Kidnapping, M/M, Multi, Other, Peter Parker Whump, Precious Peter Parker, Steve Rogers Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Torture, eventual polyamory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-21 02:38:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15547752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/four_leaf_chloe/pseuds/four_leaf_chloe
Summary: AU in which Tony isn't warned in time, and the World Security Council is successful in nuking New York City.From there, everything changes. The entire city and much of the surrounding area is laid to waste. Protected by the magic of an Infinity Stone, there are seven survivors: the six Avengers... and one mysterious little boy by the name of Peter Parker.Cue the government conspiracies, running from the law, superfamily feels, shenanigans, tyranny, underground resistance efforts, confusion, polyamory, kidnapping, serious whump, and Tony really didn't mean to become a dad like this (or at all) but here we are.





	1. thought we'd built a dynasty

**Author's Note:**

> HERE IT IS GUYS MY PRIDE AND JOY MY FIRSTBORN CHILD MY LOVE MY LIFE MY SUN MY MOON MY _PRECIOUS_
> 
> just kidding, this is really just an idea that's been festering and I couldn't let it go. the plot is mostly just going to be a collection of smaller arcs and new ideas that I have, and I'm going to try to update every few days or so. expect LOTS of fluff and whump and feels. once the premise is established (probably by the first 5-10 chapters) the rest will be a lot of snapshots and daily life type of stuff... 
> 
> well, daily life that involves nearly dying and trying to overthrow the tyrannical government. 
> 
> it'll continue till my muse burns out!!

The calls goes through. 

“Hey, Pep,” Tony says—quietly so the others won’t hear. The Chitauri are screeching all around them as they destroy New York, but none of it matters anymore. It’s a hopeless fight and they know it. 

Steve is fending them off right now, for just these fleeting moments taking on more than he can probably handle—just so Tony can make this one damn call. 

It’s a small blessing, but right now it’s everything. 

He crouches, blood dripping down his forehead into his eyes, mixing with the salty tears he won’t admit are there. “Hey,” he mutters again, “listen.” 

“Tony?” Her voice is frantic. “Oh my god, oh my—are you—are you—? T-tell me what’s happening. Tell me what’s happening  _ right now.” _ She sounds like she knows exactly what’s happening and just wishes, wants,  _ aches _ to be told something different. 

“I love you, Pepper.” He doesn’t have time. He doesn’t have time for anything, and there are so many words,  _ so many _ that he wants to say,  _ needs _ to say, but he doesn’t. have. time. “I love you, Pepper Potts, more than anything in the whole damn world. I love you and if I die here—” 

“Tony, oh my god—” 

“—then it’s something you deserve to know. Find something else. Somebody else if you have to—” 

“Tony Stark, don’t you  _ dare—”  _

“Don’t let this destroy you. Pep. I love you. You’re the best.” His voice cracks at the end, and the tears (that he tried to wish away) finally are falling. “Always have been, y’know. Don’t know where I’d be without you.” Probably dead a lot longer ago than this, if he’s honest, and maybe it would’ve been his own hand that did it. 

He hates thinking like that. 

Life’s too short to dwell on the times you wished it were shorter. 

He hears Pepper sobbing now, just full-on sobbing like there’s no tomorrow—which, fine, for him there might not be—and damn, Tony Stark really must have a heart after all, because he has to have one to feel it breaking like this. 

He gets in one last “I love you” before Steve goes down in a heap and he knows his time’s up. 

Tony hangs up. Knowing that while those likely weren’t his last words, they might’ve been the last ones that mattered. 

 

* * *

 

 

Steve’s leaning on Thor and breathing hard. Tony watches, eyes flickering over their battered bodies, as blood falls in rivulets from Steve’s midsection. The moment’s distraction costs him: he’s flying low, searching for Clint, and a landbound Chitauri snags his armor and slams him into the pavement. 

Concrete goes flying in chunks. 

_ Fuck _ that hurts. 

But still Tony drags himself up, gasping, ignoring the way the comms have now been replaced with buzzing in his ears. Yeah, that’s broken. Along with… several of his bones, probably. Including like half of his ribs. 

Yikes. His repulsors flicker and blast to life and Tony almost screams. 

He repeats:  _ FUCK,  _ that hurts. 

But he flies anyway. Every damned breath hurts now, but there’s nothing he can do about it. He bites back involuntary tears of stupid freaking pain and searches for Clint, taking out as many Chitauri as he can along the way. 

Multitasking. 

He wishes the comms weren’t broken—or, well, his end, at least—because he now has no idea who’s dead and who’s still alive. 

At this point everything feels futile. They’re all dead, really. Some of them are just holding out a little longer. 

Tony flashes back for just a second—a cave, poorly lit; a car battery, Yinsen’s voice—the walking dead, he’d said, about the shrapnel in Tony’s chest— 

Another Chitauri, this one far bigger, tries to rip Tony in half and nearly succeeds. 

Tony screams, the agony finally a little too much, as he’s slowly pulled apart, and  _ this is it, _ he thinks,  _ this is how I die, god I’m glad for Steve because looks like those really were the last words that mattered—  _

Except no, it isn’t how he dies. 

Because just as his vision’s whiting out from the pain the beast screeches and dies. Tony looks down, blinking blearily, and notes that the Chitauri’s entire lower half has now been blown up. 

Hawkeye leaps down from a three-story window, leather gloves catching the side of the building and slowing his fall so he lands easily. Sticks it like a gymnast. 

“Barton! Not dead, I see.” Tony grins. 

“You and me both. Not dead, yet.” Clint does not grin. His mouth is set in a hard line. Tony’s unsure how to take this fact. Clint is, like, the one guy he can trust to pretend not to take a situation seriously with him. 

But then he sees the bloody teddy bear stuffed into the archer’s belt. And in the next second, after a breath of hesitation, Clint says something that scares him. 

“I have a family, you know,” he mutters. “Kids. I got kids, Tony.” 

And okay, hold up, what the effing hell, holy shit. 

Clint pats the teddy bear in his belt. Is he crying? He’s not crying. No way is he crying, he’s Hawkeye. Tony blasts a few more Chitauri and turns so he’s back to back with Clint and can no longer see the not-crying that’s happening. 

“And you know what?” Clint shouts over the sound of aliens exploding in the sky. “It never gets easier, seeing people die. Seeing kids die. Because in the end they all look like mine.” 

And fuck, Clint really needs to stop because Tony can’t handle this, he’s making it a lot harder to accept that they’re all definitely going to die here. He’d come very, very close to accepting that fact. And now Clint Barton, Clint Fucking Barton has to go and ruin that. With his sentimental stuff. His stupid sappy bullshit. Ridiculous. Clint is  _ never _ sentimental. Full of bullshit, yes, but not the sappy kind. 

Ugh. This day is ridiculous. Tony hates it. 

But he figures a lot of people probably feel that way about their last day among the living. 

Dying tends to suck. He’s come close enough times, seen it happen in front of him enough times to surmise as much. 

He’s not looking forward to it. 

But whatever. Fucking whatever. Because you know what? 

They’re the Avengers. Earth’s mightiest heroes, whatever bullshit slogan SHIELD has slapped underneath their names in fancy font. 

Captain goes down with the ship and all. 

If they’re gonna die protecting the Earth, well, so  _ fucking _ be it. 

 

* * *

 

 

It has now been three minutes since he made that call. Tony is in the air again and he sees it before the others do. 

It’s still not soon enough. 

Tony’s throat goes dry. 

Steve is screaming about closing the portal, Natasha’s got that damned staff in her hand, and from what Tony understands, the scientist Loki kidnapped—Mr. Whoever Whatsit who could’ve told them exactly what to do to close the thing—is dead. And that means they’re on their own. 

Which would be fine, and Tony was just blasting his way over already to figure it out himself, except that suddenly he sees something that makes it all pointless. 

That’s a nuke. That’s a  _ fucking missile.  _

He wants to cry. He wants to scream. SHIELD probably ordered the fucking thing is the first thing he thinks, and the second is that the comms are broken and he’ll need to shout. 

“A missile!” he screams, coming to a hard landing in front of—in front of everybody, wow, okay. They’re all gathered here in one spot, one big back-to-back circle, taking everyone down. Natasha is now blasting things with that staff of Loki’s. He’s gotta say it’s pretty great, definitely suits her well. 

Anyway. Unimportant. He’s wasted five eventful seconds and from the looks of it he’s got like fifteen left. 

“There’s a missile,” he shouts above the chaos, not letting up his repulsor fire for one second, “headed straight for us, probably gonna blow the whole damned city.” 

“ETA?” Steve yells. 

“Ten seconds!” 

The Hulk roars, Clint curses, Nat curses, Steve mutters a halfhearted “language” under his breath, and suddenly Tony wants to cry because he kind of loves these people and doesn’t want this to end. Didn’t take long for it to feel like a family, huh? Funny, that. 

Or maybe he’s just lonely, and desperate. 

These are the thoughts of a dead man walking. 

“What is our next move, Stark?” Thor yells, hammer swinging. Eight seconds. 

“Go down fighting,” Tony shouts, throwing everything into his next blast. Seven. 

“Together,” Steve adds with a slam of his shield on a Chitauri head, and damn it, he’s gone and made this cheesy. Great. Thanks, Capsicle. Five seconds left. 

“See? Nothin’ like Budapest!” Clint yells. 

“Don’t know what you mean, this is exactly like Budapest!” Nat blasts another few aliens with the glowy scepter. Three seconds. 

“We didn’t  _ die _ in Budapest, Natasha!” Two seconds— 

“Love you,” Tony says aloud, softly, just once. To everyone and no one. To the makeshift almost-something, not-quite-family that surrounds him in his last moments. To Pepper and the future they never had. To the little kid crouched behind a car yards away from him, crying— 

Wait, what—what the fuck—?  

Wait— 

_ boom.  _

 

_.  _

_.  _

_.  _

 


	2. don't you worry child

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter two!! is here!! lots of team banter here and just a bit of angst c;

 

. 

. 

. 

 

The first thing Tony Stark thinks when he comes to consciousness is _yep, I must be dead now._

The second thing he thinks is _it’s really fiery here, did I end up in hell? Damn, really thought the whole superhero business would somehow tip the scale in my favor._

And the third thing he thinks is _oh, fuck, my ribs._

He’s still in immense amount of pain. Tony gasps and groans, rolling from his stomach—why’s he even lying on his stomach in the first place?—onto his back. There’s fire everywhere, flames and thick black smoke making up the entirety of his vision. The ground is charred practically to nothing.

And the whole world is dead silent.

That, in the end, is what terrifies Tony the most.

He shudders at the pain of pushing himself into a sitting position, and—ugh. This. This is awful, he hates this, make it stop. He blinks, bleary-eyed, up at the fiery sky.

Everything is so quiet.

Is he really dead?

He has to be. The missile…

The missile.

Tony whirls around, suddenly panicked. The others—they—they’re here, too. Lying in the burning carnage. Bodies intact. Tony drops to his knees and checks Nat’s pulse, since she’s closest—moves on to Clint, and Steve, and Thor, and—and Bruce, who’s normal-sized again—

Alive. They’re all alive.

Thank god.

Wait.

If they all have pulses, that means… what…? How the hell are they all alive? How the hell? Tony stares, dumbfounded, at the sky for a good several seconds—then he takes a second to glance down, and it hits him.

There. Right there.

The staff. The glowing staff. How…

It must’ve protected them, he thinks, even as he’s shaking his head because this is insane. This is crazy. He doesn’t know how long has passed since the missile hit, but he does know that if he’s reading this situation right, all of New York City and possibly as much as half the state is dead right now. Gone.

And because of this staff—or perhaps some other divine interference, some deus ex machina, the six of them are alive.

And one inconvenient Chitauri that chooses this exact moment to come to its senses and lunge at Tony, but he blasts it a few times with barely-working repulsors and it’s dead pretty quickly.

Okay… okay. So.

Tony picks up the staff. Turns it over in his hands. He glances at his team.

He doesn’t see this situation getting any better. He doesn’t know what the staff is, but it’s dangerous. It’s dangerous as all hell. The missile probably blew the portal seven ways to Sunday, and it looks like all of the Chitauri are taken care of, so right now Tony’s best bet is to get his team up and running and get them and the staff somewhere safe so they can take stock of the situation.

He starts by kicking Clint.

It seems like a reasonable way to begin. 

 

* * *

 

 

“Nnngh… Ton...y…?”

“Rise and shine, buttercup.” Tony kicks Steve again. He is the last one awake and no one is surprised; for a guy who often claims he never wants to go close his eyes again after seventy years unconscious, he sure is a heavy sleeper.

“Gooood morning, honeycakes, miss me?” Clint adds sweetly. Tony is relieved; Clint is back on his usual bullshit. Good. Perfect. Stability. Tony is great with stability, he loves it. Absolutely thrives on it.

Nice to have things he can count on. Because as time goes on, there seem to be fewer and fewer of those.

(Apparently death isn’t even one of those anymore. The universe just loves ripping the rug right out from under him, doesn’t it. Damn.)

Steve groans and rubs his head as he sits up. Tony crosses his arms. It takes another second, but then Cap is leaping to his feet, blue eyes wide.

“That,” he says, “that was—are we—?”

“Not dead,” Natasha says.

“Probably not dead,” Bruce corrects.

“Yes, thank you for your optimism, it’s quite helpful,” she snaps, but there’s no real bite behind it. They’ve got bigger fish to fry.

The fire is everywhere, the ground charred black for miles, thick black smoke clogging the air. And it’s starting to get to them, too—they were already dirty bloody messes, but soon they’ll be dirty bloody messes dying of smoke inhalation if they don’t get out of here.

“I think I can fly us out of here,” Tony says. “One at a time, at least. Thor, help me out?”

“Of course,” the god agrees, a tightness behind his eyes that reflects the stress they’re all suddenly feeling.

“Okay, Steve, you’re gonna need to let go of your pride, I’m carrying you.” Tony smirks and holds out his arms. “Princess style.”

“Absolutely not,” Cap says. “Turn around.”

“Wha—?”

Then Cap’s riding piggyback and Iron Man regrets all of his life choices.

Thor takes Bruce, Tony takes Clint, Thor takes Natasha, and finally, Tony comes back for the staff.

That's when the curveball finally hits him. He'll later look back on this as a pretty defining moment; right now, it's marked by utter shock and not much else.

He notices something else. Something decidedly far more unexpected than the staff he came back for.

Crouched behind the remains of a smashed car nearby is what looks like a person.

Tony gapes for several seconds—it comes crashing back, then, those last moments when he noticed a _child_ of all things in the moments just before the missile hit—and then he gapes some more, because _shit._

That’s a _kid._

A kid who might be an addition to their very tiny list of survivors. A kid who, if he’s alive, is almost definitely now entirely orphaned and alone, because whatever family he had…

Well, they're gone.

They've gotta be gone.

Tony practically falls over himself in his attempt to get over to the kid, faceplate lifting as he turns the child over and checks for a pulse. Manually, just as with the others, because it stings, it hurts bad, but JARVIS isn't answering him and Tony doesn't know if there's much left of the AI to salvage. Not if Tony’s base of operations along with every piece of tech he has, besides the suit itself, is blown to hell.

He misses JARVIS already.

Yeah, maybe it's stupid, okay? Maybe it is, but Tony misses his AI, because JARVIS felt like a friend and Tony never had a lot of those.

The boy has a pulse.

He’s breathing, but barely.

Hope isn't dead yet, thank god. Tony flashes back to what Clint said, about how you never get used to seeing kids die. Tony doesn't want to make an eight-year-old addition to the list of people he's killed. New York City is gone, millions upon millions murdered, and Tony has to shoulder that blame. It's on him and he knows it.

He suddenly hates that he survived.

He hates it.

But there's no time for that now—the Avengers survived, but so did this little kid, and you'd better fucking believe Tony is gonna make sure it stays that way. Not losing him now. Absolutely not. He needs to get him out of here.

He straightens the kid's cracked glasses, cradles him in one arm and grips the staff in the other, and then the thrusters power up and they're gone. 

 

* * *

 

 

So everyone stares at him pretty hard when he lands with both the staff and a kid. As opposed to just the staff. Because that’s what they were expecting. Tony is fully aware of that.

“Well,” he says, clearing his throat. “I found this.”

They keep staring. Even Natasha, though her gaze is carefully far from shocked—she’s not showing any surprise if it’s there, just waiting, Tony knows. To see what they’ll do. What he’ll do.

Clint frowns.

“Cooper’s age,” he mutters, and he can only be talking about his kid, because _that’s_ now a thing, apparently. Natasha doesn’t blink. So she knows, Tony registers. She’s probably always known.

“He must have been within… whatever range the staff had.” Bruce steps forward now—his hands are trembling as he reaches out to touch the kid, then stops himself. Carefully, Tony lays him down.

They’re at the top of an abandoned building, warehouse, whatever, miles and miles from the impact site—probably out of state. It was a good twenty minute flight in both directions, with Tony’s supersonic thrusters at full capacity, and Thor going at who-knows-what speeds with that hammer of his, so they’re pretty far out. It’s probably been a solid hour and a half now since they woke up.

Tony has no idea what that really means, considering they still can’t be certain how long they were all out.

Bruce doesn’t try to touch the kid again. He stays back, hands still shaking. There are tears in the man’s eyes, grief curdling there, a dull rage masked by sadness. Because this kid wasn’t the only child in New York City, and they all know it.

He was just the lucky one.

“He’s probably alone now,” Steve says, softly, and Tony understands why. Why they were all thinking it, but Steve’s the only one who spoke the words—because Steve, too, is alone. So alone, and he has been ever since he was first pulled out of the ice.

It doesn’t make Tony hate him any less.

(Well, okay, fine. He doesn’t _hate_ the guy. He just… strongly dislikes him.)

“All alone,” Steve repeats, and shakes his head. “That missile…”

“I know,” Tony snaps. “We all know, Cap.”

“Boys,” Nat cuts them off tiredly. Clint steps closer, and Tony might’ve tried to stop him, except that he’s now newly aware of the fact that Clint is probably more well-versed in this area of life than Tony himself is.

“Hey, kiddo,” he mutters. Gently shakes the kid’s shoulder.

“Why are you waking him up?” Tony

“He isn’t asleep anymore,” Clint deadpans. “He woke up a minute or so ago, he’s just pretending. Trust me, my kids do this to me all the time...” He runs a hand through the boy’s hair, and his fingers come away bloody. Tony pales. “Come on, kiddo. It’s okay. You can open your eyes now, buddy.”

His voice is so impossibly soft.

Tony doesn’t know what to do with this new Clint. This is very, very surprising. He is really not at all sure what to do with this, he thinks he needs to sit down.

He sits down.

The boy blinks his eyes open.

And then he starts to shake.

He curls in on himself, shivering, and there are little sobs wracking his body—his tiny, tiny eight-year-old body—he’s just so small, why is he so _small,_ Tony is going to protect this child with his life—

“Why’s he crying?” Tony demands. “Clint. Make him stop.”

“It doesn’t _work_ like that, Tony.” Nat sounds beyond exasperated. And _hey._ Why the hell, Tony would like to know, does Nat thinks she know so much more about kids than Tony does? This is unfair.

The kid cries and Clint soothes him softly, Natasha eventually walking over and coming to sit beside him. The kid’s sobs begin to quiet after a bit. It’s so weirdly domestic, but also they just survived a veritable apocalypse, so it’s kind of not at the same time.

The quiet swallows them. Tony recalls how quiet it’d been when he first woke up after the nuke hit—quiet not due to serenity, but because everyone was dead.

“He is very small.”

“Astute observation, Thor, thank you,” Bruce says, and as usual, Tony has a difficult time discerning how serious he is.

“ _Very_ small,” Thor continues, one hand stroking his chin. “His ribs are visible.”

“Aww, he’s scrawny like Cap used to be,” Tony observes. “Look, Stevie, it’s a mini you…”

“Don’t call me that,” Steve snaps in an odd voice, and Tony senses that he’s hit a nerve, so he doesn’t press.

Thor’s frown deepens. “Clint, is he finished crying yet? It’s rather uncomfortable. He looks like a—a kicked puppy, as you Midgardians say.”

“That is exactly what he looks like. Hey, kid, what’s your name?” Tony leans over so he can see the kid’s blotchy, soot-streaked face. “You’re gonna have to tell me quick or I’m just gonna start calling you Kicked Puppy for my convenience and I don’t think you want that.”

The kid looks so absolutely lost, but he does manage to choke out a hoarse, “P-Peter. Parker. Peter Parker…”

“Alright then, Peter Parker, up we get.” Without warning Tony scoops him up. “Did you and your family live in New York City?” Peter nods. “Any relatives outside the city?” Peter shakes his head, and Tony's heart drops to his shoes, and with grim satisfaction, he nods and says, “We need to get out of here.”

“What the hell—Tony, why—?” Clint scrambles to his feet, looking incredulous, probably at how Tony just grabbed the kid without preamble.

“Look.” Tony nods in the direction of the sky. There are helicopters circling closer to the blast site, pretty far-off but still within sight. “I don’t know what those are doing, but I can almost guarantee they’re related to the nuke that just hit us, and if SHIELD or whoever the fuck it was just nuked us—”

“Language,” Steve snaps suddenly, and Tony gawks.

“Did you just—? Okay. You know what, whatever. I’m filing that into a nice little folder to be pulled out later and for now I’m just going to continue—my point is, we don’t want them finding us. We should be, by all means, dead. They’re going to think we’re dead. We’re not, and if we want it to stay that way, we should probably let them keep thinking that.”

Nat crosses her arms, perfect poker face intact. Thor’s frown deepens further, Bruce’s hands are still shaking, Clint’s keeping his eyes on the kid, and Steve only hesitates for a moment.

“You’re probably right,” he concedes.

“Hold on. Can you say that one more time?” Tony quips, because he can’t resist. “I need to save that. Relish it. Keep it framed in my list of memorable moments—”

“Tony,” Nat sighs, and he shuts up.

“Moving on. Let’s get hidden,” he says, and glances down at the kid. At little orphaned Peter Parker, who probably doesn’t even realize yet the extent of what’s happened, and who looks both thrilled and terrified. Hey, he’s half-dead in the arms of Iron Man—who can blame him, really? “Alright, you ready to be a fugitive, kiddo?”

“ _Tony._ ”

“Sorry, Nat. Alright, team—”

“Let’s go,” Steve finishes, exactly like Tony expected him to.

(He thinks about Pepper and Rhodey for a second. Then he stops, because that—

That just hurts too much.) 

 

. 

. 

. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one didn't have a whole lot of fluff yet, nor a whole lot of tony & peter feels-- but those are coming soon, i promise you. pinky swear!


	3. making the past an unreachable place

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HHH YEAH IT TOOK FOREVER I'M SORRY 
> 
> next chapter will be longer + come sooner!!

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. 

. 

They end up in the same building, just… lower. 

As in, underground. 

Nat and Clint expertly examined the whole property—privately owned, but hasn’t been touched in ages, Nat said as she ran a finger through the dust caked on the floor. She and Clint had no trouble finding the trapdoor to the basement, which they all shimmied into before the two assassins soundproofed it and hid it with a rug. “Temporary fix. We’ll find somewhere better,” Nat said, while Clint nodded along. 

Now they’re all huddled in the surprisingly spacious basement of some abandoned safehouse. 

All six Avengers. 

Plus an eight-year-old child. 

“I’m ten,” Peter mutters in protest when Tony says as much. The kid’s out of Tony’s arms and wandering around, poking at things and talking to himself, occasionally giggling.  _ Giggling. _ Tony will never understand children. 

“You’re what now?” Tony says. 

“Ten. I’m ten years old,” Peter says. “Not eight.” 

“He  _ is _ Cooper’s age,” Nat muses. 

“Are ten-year-old kids supposed to be that small?” Tony asks. 

“They come in all shapes and sizes,” Clint offers. 

“I’m not small!” Peter protests. 

“On the contrary, Midgardian, you are very small,” Thor says, then reaches down and grabs Peter by the scruff of his shirt. 

An odd protectiveness flares up in Tony—he squawks in protest and jumps to his feet, while Peter wriggles midair as Thor looks him up and down. “Very small,” Thor appraises. “But that can be an advantage in a fight, you know. You can be… elusive. Smaller target, harder to hit. Now, that’s nothing on these babies—” he flexes the arm that isn’t holding Peter up— “but with training, you could be an  _ excellent _ warrior, have no doubt.” 

Peter grins mischievously. “Yes! I’m gonna be the best warrior you ever saw!” 

“That’s the spirit,” Thor agrees jovially. 

“What—no!” Nat protests, and Tony has never in his life agreed with anything more. 

“He’s ten!” Tony shouts. “He’s not going to be a  _ ‘warrior’ _ of any kind! Put him down!” 

“Child soldiers are illegal,” Steve contributes helpfully. 

“Very illegal…” Bruce looks afraid for Peter’s well-being, like Thor’s going to drop him or something, but he’s still got shaky hands, still fearful and hesitant to touch the kid at all. 

Tony, meanwhile, is unsure of just how breakable ten-year-old children are. Would he die? If Thor dropped him or something, would he? Would his arm break off? 

He knows he  _ must’ve _ been one of these once, but it was a very long time ago, and honestly half the time he isn’t sure he believes it. One of those pics-or-it-didn’t-happen moments. Tony Stark? A child?  _ Ever? _ No. 

Case in point—he isn’t sure how these things work. How Peter is intended to work. 

“Hey, kiddo,” he says. “If my buddy Point Break here dropped you, would you die?” 

“Um… no?” Peter frowns. “I don’t think so. Why’d you call him that?” 

“Point Break? It’s his real name. Thor’s just a cover-up. He’s actually named Point Break, but he’s embarrassed about it—I would be too, honestly, being named after a bad ’90s movie—” 

“Stark, I hope you know I could kill you in one strike with this hammer.” 

“Thanks, Point Break, I’ll keep that in mind. Moving on.” Tony crosses his arms. “Put the kid down.” 

Thor glares for several moments until Natasha clears her throat. He sighs theatrically, then obliges, releasing Peter—who, to Tony’s utter shock, squeals with delight (actually  _ squeals _ ) and then runs over to—get this—hug  _ Tony _ of all people around his middle. 

What the hell. 

What the everloving  _ fuck. _

“Uh, kid?” Tony taps Peter’s shoulder. “Hey. Buddy. While I appreciate the gesture and all, don’t you think you could’ve picked a better favorite? I mean. Come on. Look, Cap over there is freshly dethawed and totally huggable.” 

He’d be lying if he said he doesn’t like this, it actually gives him a weird warm fuzzy feeling in his chest, but seriously. He’s not a good role model. Definitely better to nip this in the bud. 

“Nope,” Peter says. “You’re my favorite. Forever.” 

Tony pauses, at a loss. 

So much for nipping it in the bud. Okay. New game plan. He’s got other things to think about— 

“We need to find out what’s going on,” Steve says, voice serious. 

“Took the words right out of my mouth.” Tony’s annoyed because he was just about to say that, but whatever. “There’s a real faint signal all the way underground here, but I’ve been trying to access the internet for the past several minutes and I  _ think _ I might be seeing some success.” He pauses, and doesn’t mention JARVIS. The pause continues as he finally starts to get results, and starts searching and reading. 

His expression goes grim. 

“You aren’t going to like this,” he starts. 

“Lay it out,” Steve says. 

“Uh, guys—” 

“No.” Steve’s voice is hard. “No, Clint, we need to hear it, and nobody’s sugarcoating anything. Tell us, Tony.” 

“Um, I really think you should—” 

But Tony’s already listing off the damage. 

“New York City’s gone. Wiped out. All five boroughs, razed. Upstate is mostly safe, but the collateral damage and radiation extends all the way into Jersey and Connecticut. Death toll’s not official yet, but most sources agree that it’s easily over ten million.” 

Everyone is silent. 

Tony doesn’t realize something’s wrong until he realizes something else: Peter’s silent now, too. 

He sees the kid’s pale face, almost grey, and wide, shining eyes, and then it hits him. Peter’s whole family—and he hadn’t even  _ realized _ yet— 

Oh. 

_ Shit.  _

“ _ Tony,” _ Clint hisses furiously, and Tony swallows, his throat thick. Fuck. 

He realizes what’s about to happen only a moment before it does—the kid’s knees buckle and his face goes slack, and Tony dives, but in spite of his efforts, he’s not the one who catches Peter as he passes out. 

Not Tony, not Clint; not Thor, despite how easily he lifted the boy just moments ago. 

Rather, it’s Bruce. 

 

* * *

 

 

Once Bruce catches the kid, he’s quick to back off, allowing Tony to rest the kid’s head in his lap, because Tony Stark does what he wants and for some godforsaken reason what he wants is to hold this kid and run his fingers through his hair and protect him from the world. Maybe as an apology. For not saving his city, his family, the life he had. 

The life he’ll never have again. 

“Head injury,” Bruce says quietly. “That, and shock.” 

“ _ Head injury? _ Bruce, what the fuck—” Tony recalls with startling clarity the blood in Peter’s hair earlier, and he looks down and his stomach twists at the sight of the blood on his own fingers now. Yikes. 

“Minor,” Bruce says. “Head wounds bleed a lot. He isn’t concussed—I gave him a cognitive test while you all were inspecting the building—but it probably contributed to why he fainted. He would’ve been fine if it weren’t for the shock of, you know… finding out about the city… and his family being dead. I’m guessing.” 

Clint’s glaring very pointedly at Steve and Tony both. 

“Bad call, Rogers,” Tony mutters, but adds a quiet apology of his own—mostly just to Peter, who’s asleep anyway. Or knocked out, if there’s a difference. (There probably is.) 

Steve has the decency to look sheepish. 

 

* * *

 

 

“Why didn’t you try to stop the nuke?” Steve asks quietly, a little later. Clint and Nat are sitting back to back, both dozing. Bruce is staring off into the distance, lost in thought. Peter’s been passed around a few times now, as everyone tries to make the kid as comfortable as possible until he wakes up, and right now he’s in Thor’s lap—Thor, swinging his hammer absently, other hand resting on Peter’s head, little Peter Parker asleep on the lap of the God of Thunder, and isn’t that something. The gentleness the Asgardian shows makes Tony’s heart hurt. 

Somebody else should be holding this kid like that. 

But that somebody else is dead now. Along with millions and millions of others. 

“Wasn’t far out enough,” Tony mumbles. “If we’d been warned… if I’d had maybe, maybe one more minute, I could’ve shifted its path enough to—I don’t know. Put it in the portal, or some shit.” 

One more minute. Just one more damned minute, and ten million people could still be alive. Ten million fucking people. 

Kids Peter’s age. 

Moms. Dads. Boyfriends, best friends, siblings, children. All with dreams and futures ahead of them, wiped out in an instant. 

If Tony had just had  _ one more minute.  _

“Well.” Steve’s voice is heavy. “That’s… that’s war, sometimes. You have to make sacrifices.” 

There is a long pause. 

Tony jerks away from him. “What the fuck?” he says in a low voice. “Steve  _ fucking _ Rogers,  _ listen to me. _ If they’d aimed the nuke through the portal—if I’d had one more minute to fucking do it myself—all this could have been avoided. Those ten million people were casualties that we didn’t need. That was a sacrifice that some high-ranking bastard made without knowing what the hell he was doing—that was a sacrifice that  _ didn’t need to be made. _ ” 

Cap looks pained. “Tony, sometimes that happens out on the field, I’ve seen it, bad calls are made—” 

“Steve.” Tony’s voice is monotone. “That was not a battlefield. That was a city full of kids and their families and their homes. Don’t you dare say that sacrifice was necessary.  _ None _ of those people who died were soldiers.” 

Because this is a subject that Tony knows in and out and through and through. 

He’s doing this because he wants to  _ save _ people, not kill them. Because once upon a time, he wasn’t saving anyone, and he let himself believe otherwise. 

What happened out there wasn’t a necessary sacrifice that saved more people than it killed. It was an easy way out. Tony knows in his bones that it could’ve been different, that those people did not have to die. That Peter Parker didn’t have to be an orphan, all alone in the world. 

But that’s the way it went down. And he has to live with that. They all have to live with that. 

It’s a burden that they’re going to carry until the day they die. 

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmm some people were freaking out about pepper and rhodey earlier... if u are wondering,,, about them,,,, well,,,, stick around then ;)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AS I PROMISED, SOONER + LONGER 
> 
> hope!! you guys!! enjoyyy~!!!!!!!!!!

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“My parents are dead,” Peter says, voice dull, his little hand in Tony’s. 

They’re walking now. Slowly. Cautiously. Tony’s got eyes on every major news outlet in the country, keeping them up-to-date with each passing moment, eyes more focused on the screens in front of him than the world around him. And just from the look of things— 

From the news coverage they’re  _ already _ getting—  

Well, needless to say it’s pretty clear that they probably wouldn’t be welcomed back into the world right about now. 

Steve’s in front, Natasha and Clint flanking him. Thor’s at the back, hammer at the ready. Bruce stays safe in the middle, his only job to keep a tight handle on the other guy. 

And walking right beside Bruce, Tony’s got Peter. 

“My parents are dead,” Peter says again. 

“I know, kid,” Tony says softly. 

“No.” Peter shakes his head, voice trembling. “M-my parents were  _ already _ dead. They—they died at th’ Stark Expo when I was jus’ seven.” His words are slurring and his gait is a little unsteady, but Bruce has assured them all that it’s just exhaustion, nothing too concerning. 

And yet still Peter refuses to be carried, no matter how many times they offer. 

_ Seven, _ Tony thinks.  _ Three years ago—that’s 2009. Hammer.  _

_ Fuck.  _

“I was living with my aunt and uncle.” Peter grips Tony’s hand tighter. “My-my uncle’s not—not very nice. But m-my Aunt May’s  _ really _ nice. I-I miss Aunt May, Mis’er Stark.” 

He’s rambling and god damn it, the kid’s crying now, too— _ and why shouldn’t he be, _ Tony thinks. The poor kid’s ten years old and he’s just lived through what will probably come to be one of the most devastating disasters in history. 

“I’m so sorry, kiddo,” he mutters under his breath, not for the first time that day. 

And wonders if it even means anything, and then decides in the next moment that—no. It doesn’t. 

“We need to get in there,” Steve says, breaking through Tony’s thoughts like the goddamn celebrity he is. His tone brooks no argument. “Tell us what we’re walking into, Tony. We’ve got people to save, we need to know what we’re up against.” 

“My suit’ll protect against radiation,” Tony says tersely. “Steve, Natasha, you two should be fine. We’ll go in closer to the actual blast site—search for survivors outside the radius of total destruction. Clint, Bruce—you two take Peter, I’ll send you the coordinates where it’s safer and you can help out there.” 

His gaze flicks over the last three. Clint, eyes downcast, and Tony wonders if his family lived in the city—then stops wondering because that won’t help anyone. Bruce, who could do a lot of damage if he isn’t careful, and god, who knows what’ll happen if he’s exposed to any kind of radiation. Tony isn’t sure any of them want to find out. 

And then Peter. 

Tiny little Peter Parker. 

“Keep your eyes on that kid,” Tony says, just before they split up. “Don’t you let anything happen to him.” 

Clint’s expression is tight when he looks up. “Wasn’t planning on it, Stark,” he says, and Tony knows that Peter’s going to be safe. 

 

* * *

 

 

They continue for days. 

Barely sleeping, not eating. Running themselves into the ground, only ever resting when their pace begins to slow, so that as soon as they’re back up again they’re as fast and determined as ever. 

The comms are still busted but Tony knows that Clint’s taking better care of Peter than Tony’s own team is taking care of themselves. At least Clint fucking  _ better _ be. 

Hours pass. Sunrises and sunsets. 

Tony made sure that they all knew beforehand just how  _ crucial _ it was that they stay in the shadows, don’t let more people see you than is absolutely necessary, and from the way things are looking all over the internet, it seems they’re doing a fine job. At the very least they haven’t been swarmed yet with journalists who’ll only keep them from doing their fucking job. 

(It probably helps that journalists aren’t likely to venture as far as paramedics will into a war zone. And what a war zone this city has become.) 

The articles, though— 

The articles still aren’t pretty. 

Singing of failure, of lives lost, of hatred; conspiring in whispers that maybe it was the so-called heroes behind this all along. Cover stories and false accounts. Witnesses claiming—swearing on their  _ lives _ they saw Iron Man himself  _ launch that damned missile.  _

Tony wants to scream. He wants to cry and  _ break _ something, diffuse the brokenness hiding inside him that’s been there since Afghanistan, since Yinsen, since the first moment after the blast when all he could think was Pepper’s name. Instead he flings another building off the ground and scoops a dying little girl into his arms. 

(Tony forces himself not to think about how many of these people are going to die of radiation poisoning within the year. How many will die of blood loss and complications before radiation ever gets the chance.) 

He shoves the girl into the arms of a woman with children, probably not her mother but Tony hasn’t got time to find out. Nat’s at her side in the next moment, guiding the civilians into the trickling stream of survivors that shuffles to safer ground. 

There is a small boy, Peter’s age, probably, at the woman’s side. Red leaks and drips from the child’s side, and his little hand is bloody where it presses up against the wound. 

Tony can’t provide emergency medical care. 

He turns and flings himself back into the fray, tearing through rubble and doing the only thing he can. 

 

* * *

 

 

Days pass. 

 

* * *

 

 

Tony finds a man screaming with a baby in his arms, but he’s too late. He knows he’s too late as soon as he sees the tiny face. 

Days pass. 

 

* * *

 

 

There is another, a younger man, not screaming but silent. Twenty or so, if Tony had to guess. Curled around the body of a girl maybe fourteen. And yards away there is another baby, and this one is crying. 

He is not too late. He doesn’t know what happens after he drags them over to Steve who in turn gets them to paramedics, but he knows that he was not too late. 

Days pass. 

 

* * *

 

 

It might’ve been a week. And a half. Maybe two. But probably not, because authorities tend to call it at five to seven days, and it’s around the time the police abandon search-and-rescue that finally they reconvene. So probably a week, then, and to Tony it feels like the longest week of his life. 

(He checks the date. Yep. Eight days.) 

Clint’s got a burn phone, so does Nat; they chat a bit and reconvene miles away to chat some more. 

Tony half-stumbles, half-falls out of the suit for the first time in what feels like a century. 

Thor catches him. 

Everyone’s exhausted, though Thor seems to be doing a little better than the rest of them. They sit and speak in half-sentences that are barely understood, but the messages get across; they’re on the same page now. Steve censors everybody’s language except for Clint because he doesn’t seem to have the energy to censor Clint. Tony can relate. 

“Hey there, Pete,” Tony says softly as the kid shuffles over to him sleepily. “Tired, huh, buddy?” 

“Yeah,” Peter murmurs, and promptly sits beside Tony on the forest floor and lays his head on Tony’s lap. He’s asleep in seconds. 

“Why didn’t you turn him in,” is the first thing Tony says, and all trace of exhaustion is gone, replaced with a razor-sharp edge. 

“Tony, the kid…” Clint looks pained. “You saw him, Tony. You saw him. We can’t leave that.” 

“What, you’re  _ attached _ now?” 

“Like you aren’t.” Tony’s fuming, because is this guy fucking serious? 

“You said not to let him out of my sight, you know,” Clint continues conversationally. Bruce wisely keeps his mouth shut. 

“Yes,” Tony says tersely, “because I wanted you to keep him safe. I didn’t mean actually keep him! You don’t just  _ keep kids! _ ” 

“Tony, he isn’t supposed to be alive right now, not any more than we are and you  _ know that. _ Besides, it’d break his squishy little heart to be abandoned now.” 

“We wouldn’t be abandoning him, we’d be handing him off to someone who can  _ actually take care of him—”  _

“You don’t know that,” Natasha interjects. 

They go quiet for a moment. 

Tony looks at Nat for one second, then two. She looks back. Her expression sharp as it always is. 

Ah. 

“Okay,” he says, “so you don’t trust the system. So that’s what this is?” 

Clint’s expression doesn’t loosen up a bit. “That, and the kid’s clearly attached—” 

“Anyone would be, Clint, we’re  _ literal _ superheroes—” 

“No, no, no. Tony.  _ Tony. _ You pulled him out of flaming wreckage,  _ personally _ saved his life and then held him when he’d lost everybody. Look at him now.” Clint doesn’t point at Peter, asleep on Tony’s lap, but let’s be honest, he doesn’t have to. “The kid loves us. You, in particular, don’t ask me why but it’s clearly the case, Iron Man. You can’t just abandon that. A kid’s love isn’t something you take lightly, Stark.” 

And damn if this doesn’t have so many double meanings, all of which Tony would love to dissect except that he just doesn’t have the energy. 

That, and maybe Clint’s starting to make a little sense to his tired brain. Some kind of seriously whacked, messed-up sense, but sense nonetheless. 

_ That, _ and the fact that the Peter’s asleep in Tony’s lap right at this very moment, and damn if it isn’t hard to imagine handing him off to a stranger now. Even if they’re hardly anything more than that, it wouldn’t sit right with him, and Tony knows it. 

“Right,” he says tersely. “Well, seems we’ve got a kid now. Clint, Brucey, I’m blaming you two if something goes wrong. Let’s not fuck him up.” 

“Language,” Steve contributes. 

“Fucking  _ hell, _ ” Tony says. “I’m going to sleep.” 

 

* * *

 

 

They end up at a different abandoned house than the one before, for a more permanent residence—a far, far more abandoned one. Still private property, but it’s a few hundred square feet among acres and acres and acres of hardly-touched woods. They won’t be found here. 

“We’re pretty much fugitives,” Nat says, eyebrows raised. “SHIELD’s the government, SHIELD most likely just tried to nuke us, SHIELD wants us dead and clearly we’re not. If we’re somehow outside the law, now, might as well act like it.” 

“ _ How _ is it that we are the ones outside the law here,” Tony says flatly. “Explain this to me.  _ How. _ ”  

Nat just shrugs. 

 

* * *

 

 

“Hey, Bruce?” Tony says as they’re digging and insulating a second basement level to the makeshift safehouse. “Try not to get too angry down here, would you?” 

“Always angry, Tony.” 

“Ah. Right, forgot that one.” 

“No, you didn’t.” 

 

* * *

 

 

They take turns donning simple disguises—baggy hoodies, beanies, sunglasses—and slipping off to any of the nearest shopping centers to get basic stuff. Food, toiletries, unusual but necessary building materials. The shopping centers are pretty far, so they can’t walk, but they all memorize the route to the nearest dirt road bus stop and from there it isn’t too hard. 

Tony is very careful to snap three— _ three _ —separate pictures of Thor  _ fucking _ Odinson in the check-out line at Toys R Us, carrying several different toy brands for Peter, because they might be fugitives but Tony’s still a fuckin’ billionaire—all his money in places that no one can see but him. 

“Had an issue back in ’09 with an anniversary,” Tony said casually back when money was first a topic of conversation between the six of them. “Afterwards I made it easier to remotely access my vaults through the suit. Get cash in a pinch. So all I’ve gotta do now is discreetly hack an ATM, wipe the memory after, and we’re golden.” 

Convenient, Bruce called it then, only for Tony to respond that that was, indeed, the point. 

 

* * *

 

 

Sometimes they save people, but they keep it on the down-low. Peter thinks it’s very exciting that they’re not only superheroes, now, but  _ secret _ superheroes. 

Thor splits his time, always back and forth between Asgard and Earth, careful to time his journeys through the bifrost gate so that the lighting can be chalked up to unusually bright electrical storms. 

A man cloaked in metal pulls people from thirty-story burning buildings, but every camera close enough to catch him mysteriously shorts out. High-school girls come forward about hooded strangers with incredible strength who saved them from being mugged or assaulted. 

_No one knows who they are,_ news outlets whisper, _but we do know this: the world's heroes did not die with the Avengers._

 

* * *

 

 

“Don’t you miss having kids your age around?” Clint asks one day as he’s guiding Peter along in archery basics. 

“No.” Peter’s voice is cheerful as his arm trembles trying to pull the arrow back. 

“Wel—wait, why not?” Clint seems thrown for a loop, and from the corner where he’s pretending to read, Tony is too. Not that he’d admit it. 

“Other kids think I’m too smart. They don’t like me anyway,” Peter says, and Tony resists the urge to burst out laughing as he snaps his book shut. He stands up and walks over to them, resting a hand on Peter’s shoulder. 

“Well, we’re cooler than them anyway. Don’t need any cute little ten-year-olds when you’ve got the Avengers, eh?” 

Peter’s smile is a little empty, just like Tony’s is, too, nowadays. He knows Peter does miss his old life sometimes. He has to, at least a little. 

“Alright, kiddo, archery's over, time for a lesson in advanced aeronautics. Learnin’ from the master here.” And only when Tony slips back into smartass mode does Peter’s smile start to look a little more real. 

 

* * *

 

 

Nearly a year passes just like this. Slowly, the “secret superhero” outings increase in both danger and frequency, as they all settle into the routine and adjust to the life they’ve built for themselves. Captain America and Iron Man may be dead to the world and condemned by it, but their work isn’t. 

And for a little while, this new life is almost normal. 

It’s eleven months and a week to the day the missile hit New York that things really start to get interesting. 

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> premise = set >:) 
> 
> get ready for stuff to get real 
> 
> (also i promised stuff about pepper and rhodey and kind of didn't deliver and i'm sorry but thEY WILL BE HERE!! **SOON!!** )


End file.
